Day 37 29/4/06 - Italy

Greve -> Bologna -> Moderna -> Bologna

Highlight

• So sad to leave the castle, but there are other things to explore. We made it to Bologna this morning without getting stuck in traffic!
• Bologna has very grand buildings, palaces and churches, but the whole city left a bad taste in my mouth, and the beauty of the city was ruined, because it was raining, there was rubbish and graffiti everywhere.
• Bologna is food city, there are food shops, food streets and food markets everywhere, selling everything Italian you can think of. All the shops were selling similar things, yet they were all packed with people...You can tell a lot about a city by its shops. I didn't buy anything though, the food was expensive, and not too different to other regions.
• Our "hotel" is small but very functional, a good cheap find.
• We had an appointment to tour the Acatia of a Balsalmic Vinegar house. It turns out Acatia means attic and we were visiting someone's apartment. We visited an old lady, Marisa, who has vasts after vasts of balsalmic vinegar developing in her attic. Unfortunately she didn't speak much English, but she had almost perfect French, Dutch and German! So I spoke to her in French. I found out that she had brewing in her attic 8 years, 25 years and 50+ year old vinegar. Boy do they taste different to anything we've ever had. I don't think I can go back to normal balsalmic vinegar again.
• This little excursion led to our best ever Italian experience, somehow I understood that we were to follow her in our car to a show somewhere where she has free tickets. Driving through Moderna traffic and following an Italian driver was an adventure in itself, but it turns out that we were going to the annual Moderna Fair! Every town in Italy has their own fair, and everyone from the town gets right into the spirit of things.
• We met Marisa's daughter, Franka, who is an English teacher, at the fair, so she was able to explain what was going on! It turns out the Balsalmic Vinegar society was having their annual conference, so she agreed to meet up with us after the conference and show us around. So we had 2 hours to wonder around the fair.
• We learnt a lot in one day. The fair consisted of:
  • Home - furnishing, flooring...etc
  • Sport - they had a makeshift volleyball net where kids were playing. I'm relieved to report that we're actually than them.
  • Food - you can taste everything from the Moderna region, so I finally tried all the stuff I wanted to try in one hit! Needless to say we spent the most time here and came out with a few items.
  • Cars - Dominated by the European equivalent of Holden.
  • Outdoors - plants, furniture, pools. We didn't pay much attention to this one.
  The thing that left the most impression on us though, was the friendliness of the people. They were all amused that we were at their fair, and all tried to communicate to us in English. Yup, they found it extremely amusing that we were from Australia, and we didn't have blond hair!
• We met up with Franka again, who told us a lot about Moderna and Balsalmic Vinegar. Moderna has the perfect climate for cultivating and developing Balsalmic, and it's been a tradition in Moderna for centuries, with the vasts of vinegars passed on from generation to generation. She has started a vast of vinegar for each of her children since they were babies. To recognise the "real" vinegar, i.e. the old that's properly aged, there must be the word "Traditional" in front of "Balsalmic Vinegar". She then took us around the fair, introduced us to her friends, who proceeded to cut, or more correctly dig, a huge chunk of Parmaggiano Reggiano from the huge slab that you see at the shops. He then drizzled it very generously with 50 yr old Balsalmic for us to taste. As well, we each got a souvenir spoon from the society. They were all very proud of their home town and very keen to share their culture. The last bit of culture we experienced is the local flat bread, tagello, which is pressed in a machine. You can eat it with a range of traditional spreads and fillings. I have to say it wasn't particularly impressive, but they seem very proud of their bread, so we murmured that it tasted really good.
• We were so full after our outing, we gave up our plan of going to a 1 star Michelan restaurant.
• Armed with the recommendation from Franka, we ventured into Moderna itself. It's so close to Bologna and yet so different. The shops are definitely higher class, there's no graffiti, the people seem richer and are definitely trendier. After all the fun at the fair, we only got to look around the town at around 6pm, so all the shops and churches were already closed. The bars were starting to come alive with people however, and everyone was out to have a good time.

Food

• Home brewed coffee.
• Perugina and other chocolates.
• Panini with cold cuts, pecorino and rocket.
• Wild boar mortadella.
• Taste test of cheese, salami, bread...etc at Moderna Fair.
• Parmesan with 50 year old traditional balsalmic vinegar.
• Traditional Moderna flat bread (tagello) with pancetta (2.4)